UK and US Attitudes

Our latest research compares public attitudes in the United Kingdom with the United States, revealing significant contrasts between the two nations’ views on immigration, diversity, family, and the role of government. This report is the first to be published in a series exploring UK and US attitudes. 

The research shows that, while the UK public tends to hold more liberal views on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, people in the UK prefer a tougher approach on immigration and are less likely to see diversity as a strength compared with those in America.

With Reform UK’s rise in the polls, the research also explores how the views of Reform voters compare with supporters of Donald Trump in the US. While both groups sit to the right of their populations, the similarities only go so far. Reform voters take a tougher approach on immigration and race but take more liberal positions on issues such as abortion and contraception. The findings suggest that while both groups are driven by opposition to the political mainstream, the specific social and cultural issues that motivate their support are inconsistent in the UK and the US.

UK fieldwork for this study was conducted using the NatCen Opinion Panel – a random-probability panel of people recruited from high-quality, random probability studies such as the British Social Attitudes survey. Data for the US population were taken from the Wave 146 survey conducted by Pew Research Center, via their probability-based American Trends Panel, a nationally representative panel of randomly selected US adults. Some data was also taken from the ANES (American National Election Studies) 2024 Time Series Study (pre- and post- election), a probability-based cross-sectional survey of public opinion and voting behaviour in the US.